Redirector – Browser extension to redirect to privacy respecting front-ends | Hacker News Reader

Redirector – Browser extension to redirect to privacy respecting front-ends

github.com

104 pointsrobertheadley36 comments

200% recommend this tool. It has saved my workflow for tons of day to day interactions inside the Microsoft/Google/Salesforce ecosystem.

I use it daily as Microsoft's handling of sharepoint links is always a mystery and tries to load in the non-sense in-browser Sharepoint/OneDrive viewer, and it's really bad; so slow for everything, when it _can_ load the document the built-in viewer is filled with so much garbage the actual content is super restricted; when it can't load the content, it spends a good couple of seconds trying to load it just to tell you it can't display it and to generate a new download dialogue which takes another couple of seconds; all for which should just be a download link. This plugin solves that instantly.

Same methods with Google to force sane behavior (e.g., actual download links instead of built in google apps that are slow except for Chrome), same for Salesforce which tries to push its Lightning experience which is completely unoptimized for anything as best I can tell (and you're just screwed if you're not in a country that hosts a Salesforce instance, the latency on every load is 150 ms+, and lightning increases this even further with even more calls).

Redirector saves me so many minor frustrations every single day I cannot thank the author enough. Once you start to think about it less as a general privacy tool and more how to skip a bunch of hoops and load specific content exactly where you want, the power of this tool becomes apparent.

I even wrote the author once to thank them and got a response fairly fast as well as a brief comment on their surprise how "big" the tool got.

It's a great tool if you have to battle with awful online ecosystems and it helps you gain a bit of control again with a bit of curiosity and exploration.

I used to use Redirector ... until my need changes and needed fine-grain control over what to redirect. And then I saw Request Control.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/requestcontro...

Why I replaced Redirector with Request Control is because of its much more powerful features such as match by different document types (script, image, media, etc), its in-built variable (such as {protocol}, {hostname}, {pathname}) and origin type (same origin, same domain, third party domain, etc).

However, if your need is simple, my advice is to use Redirector instead because it is really easy to understand and use. For power users, check out Request Control.

If it still uses onBeforeRequest won't that stop working with Manifest V3? At least on Chrome?

So stop using chrome... Why use a browser that is literally killing functionality to help there business model instead of favouring privacy?

Sadly that's not practical for some sites and services.

I'd love to know what website or service you're referring to. I've been using Firefox since shortly after they released Quantum, and the only issues I've had have been related to things blocked via addons. If I disable all those addons, everything just works. So I'm using two profiles, one that has only got uBlock Origin, and my main one that has many different privacy addons and privacy configurations changed. On the rare occasion a website doesn't work on my main profile, I try it with my secondary profile and it works perfect.

My use cases are straightforward ... either redirect or filter the URLs. Not met a site where v3 manifest creates any issues.

Also, I don't use Chrome. :P

I use it, it's one of my core tools. It is fantastic. Reddit links all open with old.reddit.com (until reddit inevitably decides to kneecap that service) and I can have all YouTube and twitter links open in invidious and nitter. You can use regex or wildcards to basically redirect any URL scheme to a different one, and mutate any URL string you like automatically. IMO this sort of thing is what extensions were made for.

I much prefer the alternate front ends, but how long will the services tolerate them? Why do they tolerate them so far?

I expect that the services could easily overwhelm the alternate front ends with technical incompatabilities and expensive legal problems (whether or not the services have winning cases, they can make it expensive).

In the case where I have to use popualr browsers, I use local DNS and a forward proxy to do what this extension does, i.e., replace URLs. Google/Mozilla/Apple/Microsoft/Opera have control over extensions to their browsers, but they have less/no control over a proxy server written by someone else.

Link please to your setup

Bump to this as well

I'm also curious about your setup.

Simplified setup, many variations possible

DNS: nsd or tinydns

listens on 127.8.8.1

query example.com @127.8.8.1

custom root.zone with wildcards

answer example.com IN A 127.8.8.2

Proxy: haproxy

listens on 127.8.8.2, returns user-provided certificate

replaces URLs, etc.

forwards to 93.184.216.34, verifies server certificate

To generate certificates, I wrote a "mkcert" script years before the one written in Go that is now being promoted by someone working for Google. That company's web browser has the majority share of users. Alas, that browser is unreasonably hostile to user-provided certificates for local addresses.1 Hence this is probably not a setup that is appropriate for everyone or every situation. For recreational web use, I like to manipulate and inspect traffic, this is more lightweight than popular alternatives (mitmproxy, etc.), so it works for me.

1. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7580508/getting-chrome-t...

I wonder how to implement this with pi-hole.

Pi-Hole used dnsmasq and modified it. Pi-Hole encourages users to forward DNS queries to (so-called "upstream") third party DNS providers; I think it comes with presets for GoogleDNS and others. I try to avoid dnsmasq (it is often used by default on OpenWRT) as well as third party DNS. I love the idea behind Pi-Hole but I cannot get excited about the implementation.

If I were to make a "Pi-Hole", I would use nsd, tinydns and haproxy. There would be no need for third party DNS. For anyone that wanted to use third party DNS, optionally I would provide dnscache. It's easy to take public DNS blocklists and "import"^1 them into dnscache.

There are lots of other interesting "alternative Pi-Hole" ideas yet to be tried.

1. dnscache uses the filesystem for nameserver manipulation instead of lists. Each domain is a file in the root/servers folder. Each file contains the address of a (blackhole) nameserver.

While I like the concept, the title of this article is misleading, as nowhere on the GitHub page or even at https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ does the author highlight the privacy implications of this.

As mentioned in another comment, https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect seems to be more relevant for privacy minded folks.

This is the one extension I was really bummed to lose on Firefox for Android with the update last year where they started limiting installable extensions to a hand-selected group.

Not to pick on you, but why do you just take it? I was bummed to lose it on Firefox mobile as well, which is why I stopped using it and started using Kiwi browser. Kneecapping my tools and then telling me the other guys are worse does not fly with me, and it shouldn't fly with anyone.

I only learned about it today. Sadly though it doeant sync with Firefox which on desktop is my primary browser

Well, there's another thing Firefox is doing wrong, it's got a tiny little feature sparse walled garden, when it should be using open standards.

Question: I have never bothered syncing anything between browsers on different machines. What benefit would I get out of it if I decided to start? What all do you sync?

I like to sync bookmarks, tabs, and history, tabs so if I open a page on my browser and leave it open, my phone will tell me what I am working on on the other machine. Same for history and bookmarks. There's really no downside I can think of in this feature.

Well, the downside is that you have to use the same browser on two different machines. And it doesn't have to be that way, and of all the companies you could expect, Mozilla shouldn't make it that way. But it is a useful feature.

Mozilla needs to provide sync as an extension maybe.

I'm sorry, but suggesting that I move to a no-name chromium fork maintained by one person because I miss a Firefox extension is absurd. Perhaps I should also leave my country because my local grocery store doesn't carry the cereal I like.

> why do you just take it?

Must be my insatiable masochism.

It's not a no name chromium fork, it's literally the only chromium browser for android that supports extensions. This makes it a very powerful and popular piece of software. Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it's time to get nasty.

The analog you drew to cereal at the grocery store doesn't fit. It's not about the missing feature, it is about the deliberate kneecapping of functionality. I refuse to use a tool that deliberately, artificially and arbitrarily prevents me from using it the way I need to use it.

Firefox deliberately reduced the utility of their tool in order to constrain my behavior. And the only argument I hear in defense is "but we are all that's left that isn't them!" Fuck that noise. If it's crucial for the web to retain your users, quit fucking over your users. If you're all that's left then act like you care before you ask me to care.

Needs a workaround, but you should be able to install a limited amount of any extensions using the "Custom Add-on Collection" option: https://web.archive.org/web/20211007060220/https://blog.mozi...

I've used this to install one of the otherwise-unsupported *Monkey Userscript extensions

Looks like that's only on Nightly? I'm glad there's a workaround, but I'm not missing Redirector quite that much.

While I love the premise, it should do a better job of keeping track of active and secure instances of the different services. I've had a lot of trouble with broken redirects.

I sympathize with that problem, but I think Redirector may not be the right tool for that job. Redirector is pretty small and flexible - I imagine pinging servers and rotating hosts in a redirect is out of scope. Have you tried a more full-featured privacy service redirector? Google brought up https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect.

I like to see browser extensions being used for good (security and privacy) even if they must be side-loaded, its a powerful and under used technology.

Is there a way to use this on a phone? Particularly to not have AMP links.

There’s an iOS extension for Safari that does this; I think it’s a $5 one-time purchase. The functionality is also available on Insight Browser (a YC company), which offers various other browsing enhancements.

Do you have a link to the extension? I looked for something like this a while back but couldn’t find one.

The one I had heard about before is Amplosion, which is currently $3. It was previously discussed on HN. [2] Another cheaper option, with good ratings but many fewer of them, is Overamped. [3]

Hyperweb [4] offers a multi-function extension that blocks AMP and does many other things. It's free to download, though I think they may start charging for some features (hopefully not this one!) at some point. They're a YC company and there are some HN-specific features as well.

1: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/amplosion-redirect-amp-links/i...

2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678684

3: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1573901090?mt=8

4: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hyperweb/id1581824571

Doesn't work for Firefox mobile

Reply on news.ycombinator.com